My Virgin Pre-Booked Seats Nightmare....!!!

[OJC77]

Have just returned from Orlando flying with Virgin from Gatwick.

I had pre-booked seats 63HK for the return flight, the night before we were due to fly checked the booking on the net to find out that our plane had been changed along with our seats! We were now booked in seats 53 H&K, separated by a total stranger in seat 53J!! Tried to change the seat allocation online, but was only showing two single seats at opposite ends of the plane! I called up Virgin in the US from the hotel, who could not give an explanation of why the seats had been changed. I asked if I could have my seats i'd pre-allocated and she said NO someone else has requested these!!

I asked what else she could do to ensure the wife and I are sitting together? She suggested I phone the Virgin in the UK to see if they could do anything further. So thats what I did...made an International Call from the hotel phone to the UK, to be put on hold for 11 Minutes and for the call to be answered by the US Virgin Call Centre!!! (I and the US had not realised that it was midnight back in the UK!). Was very mad by this stage (even madder in the morning when I found out that call to the UK had cost me $65!) and the US agent told me to simply check-in at the airport and hope they could do something for us!

Next morning we went to the Downton Disney Check-In at 8.00am when they are meant to open, to be greeted with a queue of 35 people!, and we all stand there until 8.30am when they decided to open! I was hoping for an exit seat as I knew they would be available at check-in so we could sit together, but when I got to the front of the line - guess what .... all gone! Do you have any seats together I asked the lady?? No was the answer - 'its a very full flight you know!'. I then produced my Seats request confirmation and asked why these seats had been given to someone else? What makes them more special than us? I asked! She then taps away, makes a phone call and gives us seats 45F& G, not great but at least we are sitting together!

Sorry if I have rambled on somewhat!! I had to get it off my chest! It was a real happy ending (not) to our magical holiday!

Is this a common occurance - or was I real unlucky?? I realise that pre-booked seats are not guaranteed - but surely if you have had them allocated for 100+ days, you at least deserve to sit together!!??

Does anyone know why and how someone else can take seats like this?

Thanks for taking the time to read my rants!

P.S. Has anyone heard how the Candyman and Gang are getting along in Orlando?? I looked everywhere for him last week, but couldn't track him down!!

[Keith]

It's a not... "uncommon" occurance with virgin sadly :(

If they change the plane to one with a different configuration, they apparently lose all the saved seats which means they're all up for grabs. So people phoning, online etc. all get to grab seats. Their automatic allocation computer system seems to make brain dead decisions like putting people who are together seperated by a row or a seat etc. and then when you ask them to fix it (I mean in your case, they could've just moved the stranger one seat left or right couldn't they).

We were on a flight with them once where they did the same and EVERY pair/3some/4some etc was seperated. So we all got together and were working out the seating plan. They said we CANT do all these changes so basically everyone got on the plane and we just sat where made the most sense.

Sorry they did it to you :( apparently they're upgrading the planes at the moment hence the changes :/

Not heard anything from Candyman but looking forward to being at their wedding in a week or so

[Babymischief]

thinking along the same lines as Keith here, maybe you yourself once on the plane could have asked the person in seat "J" if they would object to swapping so you and your wife could be together? C`mon unless you`re a total beep how many of us would refuse a request like that and so nicely put?

[mrs disney]

Does anyone have any clue how airlines fill up their planes??? There seems to be no reason to it...How difficult can it be??? What do you have to do to get an exit seat???
How come if Im 5'9 and my DH is 6'2 do we ALWAYS have to share a row with other folks, when there are random small people with 3 seats to themselves...Ill take 3 between 2 Im not fussy!!! Ive booked in with small people, only to be allocated the extra narrow seats at the back with the limited leg room and no recline!!! Theyve all got 3 seats between 2!!!!!!!!!
How did my little sister manage to pay £120 a seat to fly to LA with BA, and get upgraded to business class outward, and FIRST CLASS return!!!!!

Check in clerks hate me!!!! sob!

[american idol]

it's not just virgin that does this, when they have to change planes due to more or less passengers they do this- and sometimes they just mess up :rolleyes: :hehe:

[tushypat]

I think it should be like a bus. Elderly passengers are allowed to take up two seats with their shopping and little dog http://pages.prodigy.net/rogerlori1/emoticons/rolleyes1.gif. Youths at the back making faces out the back window http://pages.prodigy.net/indianahawkeye/newpage23/4.gif whilst putting their legs across the next seat and everyone else stands in the aisle. Imagine what fun you'd have when they brought the duty free trolley round! :D

[american idol]

i like Easy jet's policy, you are loaded in order of check in- finally we get some reward for arriving 6 hours before check in opens (my husband is neurotic) :rolleyes:

[Kitten]

on my last trip I was sopposed to be seated on the other side of the plane to hawko and his family...... thankfully the girl at checkin sorted the seats for us, and I got the window seat :) and I was able to sit next to my darling hawko :)

[pompeyrich]

Sorry to hear about the problems you had OJC,looking at the replies reminded me of our last trip, I spoke to the man next to me and he said his family were sitting about 15 rows in front. Thats a shame couldnt you get seats together? I asked.Probably he said but I pre booked them this way for the peace and quiet !!

[pmac]

Sorry to hear about the problems you had OJC,looking at the replies reminded me of our last trip, I spoke to the man next to me and he said his family were sitting about 15 rows in front. Thats a shame couldnt you get seats together? I asked.Probably he said but I pre booked them this way for the peace and quiet !!

DH is wondering why he didnt think of that. :D

[Ad.]

I was under the impression that if two people booked a holiday together they were pretty much guaranteed to sit together, without hving to pre-book seats!

So, are some seats better than others then? I have already booked the holiday, and fly out next May, and from what I understand I can pre-book seats from 180 days out??

I'm 6ft 1 (my girlfriend is much shorter :lol: ), so leg room is factor. Any particular seats I should go for?

Thanks :D

[champagnegirl26]

Ad.
i booked my seats 2 months ago and I dont fly until June, so you should be able to book them already?
Claire.

[Ad.]

Ad.
i booked my seats 2 months ago and I dont fly until June, so you should be able to book them already?
Claire.


Can you do that on-line? And is there any seats in particular that I should choose?

Thanks again :D

[Goofy Girl]

Thats a shame couldnt you get seats together? I asked.Probably he said but I pre booked them this way for the peace and quiet !!

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

[arcamalpha2003]

I can never understand the logic with airlines.

We initially had a similar problem with tcd this year, but it was sorted out on the flight, but I would not expect to have the same prob with virgin, considering the money you pay.
What is so hard in seating families together? maybe there is a really sensible reason that travel companies know of that we as wary passengers do not.
And once people are allocated their seats on the way out, why not just keep the same seat numbers for return?
Or is the above approach too easy? :whistle:

Bill.

[snapdragon]

What interests me is that when you prebook your seats online with virgin it will not allow you to separate your party and yet it seems if they are allocating the seats they will quite happily do so.

I had a strange thing happen when I was prebooking - it refused to allocate a seat to one of my sons. Whatever order I sat us in it always left him out!! :)

Still an email to Virgin seems to have sorted it out - for now. I will be really upset if we get to Gatwick and find we've been separated.

[arcamalpha2003]

Snapdragon, how old is your son?

The reason I ask is for some reason, until we sorted our problem out on the flight with regard seating, my son had for some reason allocated a seat that he should not have for safety reasons, the reason was explained to us by one of the cabin crew, basically, the seat he was allocated was not ok for take off and landing, which would have meant him having to be moved for both procedures, happily enough, with a bit of give and take by other people the problem was solved.
My son is now 12, he was 11 when we travelled.

Bill.

[snapdragon]

Hi DS is 20 - I tried him in all the different seats we were trying to book - 6 in all, but it always left him out. We thought it was quite funny:) The computer obviously didn't like his name or something!

Virgin said it was just a computer glitch.
But not funny if it recurs at checkin.

[tb2830]

on our flight back from dlp all my family got seperated there was 9 of us and not one of us was together ...............once we were on board we were all polite and asked certain members if they would swap which they were more than happy to especially when they realised that it was either that or be babysitting my children for the whole flight lol

[arcamalpha2003]

What are the ages of your kids? seems a bit of a risk having the kids seperated.

I was under the impression that kids under a certain age had to be sat next to a parent/guardian or family member?
I must be wrong to assume that, or its just bad planning on their part from the start.

Bill.

[susieh]

What are the ages of your kids? seems a bit of a risk having the kids seperated.

I was under the impression that kids under a certain age had to be sat next to a parent/guardian or family member?
I must be wrong to assume that, or its just bad planning on their part from the start.

Bill.

The Virgin web site says that is the case and is a reason they sometimes have to move people from their allocated seat!

[welshjim22]

This is a common occurance with all airlines. If flew with BA as a kid and our whole family was split up they they even had my youngest brother booked a good half dozen rows in front of the rest of us and he was on a childs ticket.

[justine]

I work at manchester airport and although we don't c/in virgin I would have thought most airlines would work the same. One of my jobs should it be required is to reseat an aircraft if there is a change once the prebooked seating has been done, since all aircrafts are different especially emercency exits the order we were taught to do the reseat in was
1st People who had paid for exit seats
2nd wheelchair and medical requests
3rd reseat all groups with prebooked seats in seats they were orginally in if any don't exist leave them till the end then seat the group on same type ie window and one next to or either side of the aisle.

We would never split up a group who had pre-booked seats :scratch:

Just a quick note to stand up for the c/in agents seats are allocated on a first come first served basis and whilst agents do try not to leave single seats groups dont travel in uniform numbers of 2 and 3 and when the aircraft is 2seats aisle 3seats aisle 2seats it can be a real nightmare. The seatplan is like a jigsaw and when you've got 10 agents (on common c/in desks) it is hard to get all the parts to fit together. They don't split people up on purpose

Right now I can climb down of my soapbox

[Fran]

We went on a flight to Barbados where the man of the family sat separately from his wife and kids - that meant his wife had four kids under 7 to deal with on her own! They were sat across the middle with one next to me in a side seat across the aisle! They kept swapping over, kicking and bickering- while Dad had a nice peaceful journey with his book.
Another time from Orlando the youngish couple behind me got landed with looking after a total stranger's 4 year old - while the two parents sat together about ten rows ahead!

[Wendy]

We went on a flight to Barbados where the man of the family sat separately from his wife and kids - that meant his wife had four kids under 7 to deal with on her own! They were sat across the middle with one next to me in a side seat across the aisle! They kept swapping over, kicking and bickering- while Dad had a nice peaceful journey with his book.


Sounds rather convenient for the Dad though!:lol:

[arcamalpha2003]

We went on a flight to Barbados where the man of the family sat separately from his wife and kids - that meant his wife had four kids under 7 to deal with on her own! They were sat across the middle with one next to me in a side seat across the aisle! They kept swapping over, kicking and bickering- while Dad had a nice peaceful journey with his book.
Another time from Orlando the youngish couple behind me got landed with looking after a total stranger's 4 year old - while the two parents sat together about ten rows ahead!

Would not have thought they would do that, leave a four year old with a stranger, must have been a very patient kid :hehe: , at that age ours would have kicked off :D

Bill.

[Whitequeen]

When we went with Air Canada, the girls were in 2 seats by the window and I was across the aisle in the 3 seats. The flight attendant pitched up at take off, looked me in the eye and asked me if I trusted my 5 year old to be able to use the oxygen mask if it dropped down. Thinking I was on Millionaire, I was considering 'phoning a friend' when she made the people next to me swop with the girls so they were with me.:shrug:
Until then, I hadn't considered the implications of the kids sitting together without an adult and I have certainly never been asked that question on a Virgin flight. Needless to say, I'll be spreading the kids between adults next time.:lol:

[arcamalpha2003]

We had no such problem with tcd last year when the two families, nine in all, were given seats together is sunshine upper, enjoying the luxury that we had not paid extra for, put it down as a slice of good luck, accepting we would be in economy for the trip home, but again fortune smiled on us and we had the same seats for the return journey, how the other half live :wink:

Bill.

[Vikki]

The flight attendant pitched up at take off, looked me in the eye and asked me if I trusted my 5 year old to be able to use the oxygen mask if it dropped down.
That's a very good point.....

[keatingschick]

We went on a flight to Barbados where the man of the family sat separately from his wife and kids - that meant his wife had four kids under 7 to deal with on her own! They were sat across the middle with one next to me in a side seat across the aisle! They kept swapping over, kicking and bickering- while Dad had a nice peaceful journey with his book.
Another time from Orlando the youngish couple behind me got landed with looking after a total stranger's 4 year old - while the two parents sat together about ten rows ahead!

I would say the parents were out of order there. If that was me I would make sure either me or my husband sat with the child and the other sat on their own.